


Rooftops

by Synnie



Category: Show By Rock!! - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 22:51:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synnie/pseuds/Synnie
Summary: Aion just quit ShingancrimsonZ and Crow has to come to terms with that, and with his own feelings.





	Rooftops

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TomiTransylvania](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TomiTransylvania/gifts).



The room was silent, far too quiet for Crow's liking. Rehearsal stopped before it even began. Aion left, claiming “I hate anything and everything. I quit.” Rom, Yaiba, and all of Plasmagica left to go find him. He stayed behind under the pretence of not caring, but in truth, the singer was too hurt. He took Aion's leaving personal. After a little while though, the sting melted into confusion.

Crow looked over at Holy Ark as it sat propped against the rehearsal room wall where Aion had left it. Would he be back for it?

He didn't understand why Aion just up and left. Did he really quit? He couldn't have. He loved music and shingancrimsonz too much. He was the lifeblood of the band.

Did he really screw up that much? He always made fun of Wimpion and he got it right back just as bad. What went wrong?

Unable to stand the silence any longer, Crow got up and grabbed Holy Ark. He could hear Aion's voice in his head. _A rodent like you would not dare to touch what belongs to a god._

For all his talk, Aion wasn't kidding when he called himself a god. No one could play like him. Crow worshipped the ground Grateful King walked on but if there was a contest between Grateful King and Aion, he had no idea who would win. Aion didn't play music, he bared his soul. 

Playing a few experimental chords, Crow mused over how different Holy Ark felt compared to his Red Tomahawk. The shape and weight was different and the strings even felt different. He played guitar all his life but he couldn't make Holy Ark come alive the way Aion could. 

A water droplet landed on the black exterior of the coffin shaped instrument.

“Are you crying?” Crow asked the guitar in awe. But then he felt another slide down his cheek and splashed next to the droplet that was there. “Oh. Well I'm going to blame you anyway. What the hell am I doing, going on like he died.” 

_Like he died._ The words repeated in his head.

Crow heard music differently. When Yaiba played, he heard a bridge, a unification of the different instruments. When Rom played he heard a childlike enthusiasm to bang on things and make noise, relieving the stress from his job. But those sounds, while unique to their player, were just sounds. They didn't express emotions to the depths that Aion could play. Aion didn't talk a lot about his past but he didn't have to. Crow didn't know the events but he knew every emotion Aion felt in his life through the vibration of the strings beneath his fingers. 

As though they had a mind of their own, they ghosted over the chords of a song Aion rarely played. The first time Crow heard it they had been in the rehearsal room while Rom was working and they didn't know where Yaiba was. Crow had stopped fiddling around when Aion truly started playing. He had closed his eyes to listen, to truly hear everything his bandmate was trying to say. His crimson soul hurt and he shed the tears Aion couldn't. 

Aion was filled with such pain that if he were anything but a lion, Crow wasn't sure he would've survived this long. But what if it finally caught up him?

Crow's eyes narrowed in determination. He couldn't let the world lose a brightness like Aion. Music needed him, the world needed him. Crow needed him. And he couldn't live with himself if the last things he said to Aion were mean, even if they were said as a joke.

He had to find him. 

But where would he be? Crow strapped Holy Ark and Red Tomahawk to his back and ran out. He'd figure it out. 

He ran down the street as fast as he could with no destination in mind. Until sirens went by. What if…?

Crow couldn't finish the thought but followed them just in case. He was led to a tall building and from the ground he could make out a mane he would know anywhere.

Like the bird he was named for, he flew up the stairs until he made it to the roof.

Before him lay Aion, alive and beautiful despite the blood trickling from his lip where Rom had hit him and was about to again.

“Rom!” he yelled as he got close, grabbing the drummer’s wrist in time.

“Crow,” Rom looked at him. He wasn't surprised Crow had gone after Aion, just that he knew where to go when they had spent hours searching.

“Sorry but I can't allow you to leave us. It's not going to happen.” Crow’s voice left no room for argument. “And even more than that I can't allow you to make this guy sad.”

Aion gazed up at Crow holding his beloved Holy Ark. Those two being in front of him stirred something deep inside of him, something he was so afraid he had lost for good since the darkness possessed him. 

“He was crying, ‘cause you left him.” But there was a bloodshot gleam to his eyes and Aion wasn't sure if Crow had meant himself of Holy Ark. And he wasn't sure which answer he was hoping for more. 

Crow handed him the coffin shaped guitar and was so afraid it was going to get smashed, that his attempt would've been for nothing. But Aion held the beautiful instrument tenderly.

With that fear put to rest, Crow continued. “Now listen up, Aion. You haven't quit shingancrimsonz yet, understand me? None of us has officially accepted your resignation. So there!” he pointed at the guitarist still on the ground where Rom had knocked him down. But despite his action seeming childish, Crow withdrew a little, guilt and shame across his face. “And well maybe I might have mouthed off too much, too. But don't say annoying and stupid things like I quit.”

To make his point further known, he played a few chords, knowing Aion could hear him the way he always heard Aion. But Crow almost lost him and he would do whatever it took to make sure it didn't happen again.

“I will never allow a band member who wrote such beautiful and soulful songs to leave us. We need that muse more than oxygen.” 

What Aion heard wasn't “we”. He heard “I”. He and Crow wrote the songs. They fed off of each other's talents. Yaiba and Rom only polished off their creations. And Crow wasn't finished yet.

“Can't you see they're our lifeblood? We can live our lives passionately because of your music!” Crow's voice got louder, trying so desperately to break through, to reach Aion.

And if the look in the lion’s eyes were anything to go by, he did.

Aion got to his feet, Holy Ark in hand, and pressed his back against Crow's as they did when they played. Relief swept through Crow as he felt him there where he belonged.

“This god made the mistake of a lifetime,” Aion admitted, even though it was hard for him. I can't believe it took the wisdom of this undersized rodent to save my soul.”

Crow had never been so happy to be called a rodent. He couldn't help but gaze softly at Aion, look that didn't escape Yaiba or Rom. 

“Oh shut your talk hole.”

With their backs still pressed against each other, Crow felt a shudder that would’ve otherwise gone unnoticed. Glancing over, he saw a tear in Aion’s eye and it almost made him weep himself. After everything he had heard Aion say in his music he never shed a tear. But he did now.

“My eyes,” Aion said to himself. “Are these tears? I thought they had dried up long ago.”

Rom knew not to draw attention to it and cut in before Crow could ruin the moment yet again.

“Rain, fire, flood, whatever. When the four of us are together there's nothing the world can throw at us we can't overcome. Even if a monstrous wall blocks our way, when we work as a team, we'll find a way to bust through it.”

“Damn straight. ‘Cause we are ShingancrimsonZ!” Crow grinned. 

“When that monstrous wall is a full time job, even we must heed it. Hence,” Yaiba said after a moment. He looked pointedly at Rom. 

“For real. Can't break that wall if I have to keep buying you losers meals,” Rom grinned at them before calling it a night even though it was too early for bed. But Yaiba knew his bandmates needed to talk privately. 

“You owe me, you know,” Crow told him once Rom and Yaiba had left them. “I saved your ass so you have to do whatever I want.”

Aion peered at him through his fingers. He was feeling emotionally drained after his ordeal but his gratitude to Crow kept him in place. “You wish to ask for the blessing of a god?”

“Yeah. I do. You're coming back to my place and you're gonna do everything I want.”

Aion rolled his eyes. “As if you could make me do anything, rodent.” But he still followed Crow back to his place. Crow didn't poke as much fun at him as he normally would and Aion wouldn't admit to being grateful. 

The lion wasn't sure what he was expecting Crow to demand of him, but it wasn't to have arms wrap around him almost immediately after entering Crow's place. 

“Crow?”

“This is what I want,” Crow said softly, the usual attitude in his voice was gone. He sounded young and lost. He didn't look up at Aion. He couldn't. “I wasn't sure what you were going to do. Or if we’d get there in time.”

“I wasn't going to jump,” Aion told him softly. He couldn't cover his face when he spoke but Crow's hair did a good enough job. “I was just lost. I was up there trying to find my way back. Turns out I was looking for you. You were my path back to everything I love.”

“I was?” Crow looked up into red eyes.

“You were.” Crow didn't know what to say but he didn't need to. Aion leaned down and touched his forehead to Crow's. “You brought me back music, to shingoncrimsonz, and to you.”  
“To me?”

“If a rodent is too thick to comprehend, then a merciful god is willing to grant him knowledge,” Aion slipped smoothly back into his usual cadence. He was so close and Crow's eyes widened as he got closer still, leaning to cover the loud mouthed singer's lips with his own.

It lasted only a second before Aion pulled back. Crow just stared at him as his fingers moved up of their own accord to touch where Aion's soft lips had been.

“You're acting like a teenaged girl, rodent,” Aion pointed out.

“Shut up Wimpion,” but Crow's voice held no bite. He was still in shock. Aion had actually kissed him. 

“This god will bestow upon you the greatest honour. I will allow you to be the High Priest of Aion.”

“H-High Priest?”

“Yes. No one has had that title bestowed upon them. No one has been worthy of being the consort of a god.”

“Consort?” Crow's face went as red as his shirt. He knew what a consort was. He had mixed up that word with escort once and Rom had to correct him. That had been an awkward conversation. “Wait. Wouldn't we have to be dating for that?”

“Yes, that's what I said. Do try to keep up, as difficult as that may be with your tiny rodent brain,” Aion sighed.

Crow looked straight ahead, looking at Aion's chest but not actually seeing it, as he processed everything Aion had just said.

He was dating a god.

A god with more musical talent in one strand of hair than most had in their entire bodies. 

Crow grinned up at him. “Alright I guess you'll do.” When Aion opened his mouth to make a smart remark but Crow silenced him with a kiss and this time a faint blush dusted Aion's cheeks.

Crow smirked. It was going to be a lot more fun to silence the guitar god with this method than arguing all the time.


End file.
